


Querencia

by mon_ologue



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angels, M/M, Reapers, Romance, angel au, contains death because this is an angel-reaper au, reposted, some angst maybe i dont know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 10:47:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8747533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mon_ologue/pseuds/mon_ologue
Summary: Querencia (n). a place from which one’s strength of character is drawn, a safe haven or sanctuary Oh Sehun died as a human, and woke up an angel. He spends the next sixty decades collecting souls, until he meets Huang Zitao for the second time in his life after death.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in the 21st Century, but please do keep in mind that Sehun and Tao were together roughly six decades ago so the time they lived in is different from the time we live in now. There are certain circumstances that they would've been in while they were together that is somewhat implied in the story. This is reposted from my aff acc. Enjoy :)

There’s a place in Sehun’s heart that he has fought to protect over the years. A place which remains as it is even after death. A place where he finds comfort in knowing that it will always belong to a certain someone who he has loved for a long time, long ago as a human on earth, and now as an angel of souls. He feels consoled that he hasn’t forgotten the love of his life in death, like many others unfortunately have. He lives - as much as an angel can - in constant memory of  _ him, _ of the kisses they often shared, of the sound of his voice as he whispers secrets and sweet things into his ear, of the warmth he felt whenever he would hold him in his arms.

 

He wonders what fortune has been granted to him to be able to remember these things, because many of the angels he has met gave up their memories of their human selves. He has been asked if he had been offered a choice, to become an angel and lose his memories, or remain a soul, but Sehun had never even been given the chance to consider those options. He died as a human, and woke up an angel.

 

He likes his job. It’s morbid at times when he has to collect souls from mutilated bodies of victims involved in car crashes or murder, most of whom refused to leave earth, who denied death and wailed for life to come back to them. In those times, Sehun would try to sympathize because he too had died young, and it all makes him sad but he reminds himself that it isn’t always like that.

 

Sometimes, there were souls who were ready, who welcomed the end of their time on earth and smiled at him when he arrived to take them away from their lifeless physical bodies and lead them to better times. He’s especially fond of asking them when they felt the most joy in their lives, and when he watched their souls take the form of their human selves when they had experienced the most happiness. It is a reward like no other, he thinks, because he’s certain that every person has experienced some taste of heaven in their time on earth. In all his time as an angel, he’s never met an exception.

 

He spends a day on the rooftop of a building which he believes to be an apartment block. There’s laundry hanging over the railings of some balconies, and on others there were people chatting or blowing smoke into the air with every inhale aided by a cigarette. Sehun takes time to admire the garden that the humans who live here have created, the blooming flowers reminded him that it must be the turn of spring. He leans over a flowering tulip and takes a sniff, trying to remember what they smelled like in the past, when he used to walk through tulip fields with his fingers laced together with  _ his _ , admiring not only the view of the flowers but also of his smile.  _ Bellus  _ among blossoming beauties of nature.

 

He takes a seat on the edge of the building, his legs dangling over the side. He swings them as he leans back, arms supporting him and eyes closed. He can imagine the sun and how it feels on his face, and the image of a boy in faded jeans and a loose tank crosses his mind. A picnic, if he remembers correctly is where that image belongs.

 

He can remember it vividly as only the fourth date of theirs, in a park a few blocks away from his house. He never liked the sun much, but on that day Sehun dared him to face the sun, and he did. His face had been illuminated, his smiles even brighter than before, and he remembers how they kissed that day to find that it hurt. The skin on both their faces having been mildly burnt by the sun.

 

He cherishes these memories of  _ him _ , finding that even the littlest things can spur his mind to jog up some happy memory of their times together, never failing to make him smile. His heart beats a little faster when he finds himself reminiscing the time when he first made his feelings for him known, how his expression of surprise made Sehun’s heart jump in anxiety, how he calmed Sehun by saying he liked him too, and how in a couple of months he told him he loved him and  _ he _ said it back to Sehun with a kiss - their first.

 

They began their pursuit of love at seventeen, and sixty-three years later Sehun still loves him the same, perhaps a bit more now that he is a little older. He’s well aware that humans age, but here he is, stuck at nineteen, the age in which he experienced the happiest moment of his life. Admittedly they were young, but Sehun proposed to him then promising to marry the other whenever he was ready. He had been nervous, worried he would decline and things would just end there. But he didn’t disappoint, he never could disappoint Sehun no matter what he did. He said  _ yes _ , and Sehun felt like he was on top of the world.

 

He died at twenty three, and Sehun never found out if Zitao ever intended to walk down the aisle to marry him. He had still been waiting when his last breath left him. Thinking about it, he wonders if Tao wanted to marry him, and if he moved on after he vanished from his life just like that. He’s often thought about using his abilities to find him, to see how life is fairing for him, but unfortunately it isn’t permitted. Angels of the souls have only one purpose, and that’s to guide spirits to a greater place. It definitely isn’t to pry into old lovers’ lives.

 

He gets called to a bungalow in the rural areas of the city he monitors, and as he walks down the driveway, bare feet on cement, he wonders why the house looks so familiar. He passes through the front door with ease and is met with a hallway that’s dimly lit. There’s a person sweeping the floor at the end of the corridor, a young maiden in blue overalls - scrubs if Sehun can recall properly from his visits to the hospital.

He isn’t needed anywhere on the first floor, so he makes his way to the stairs and past the woman in blue, taking quiet and careful steps on the wooden floor. There are many doors in this house, and Sehun imagines that once upon a time this home had been full, with children running through the hallways and opening and closing doors, jumping on beds with joyous glee, the kitchen steaming with dinner along the way, the dining table set to the full with cutlery and plates and cups of all sizes.

 

He’s drawn to the door right at the very end of the hallway, and he wonders what kind of human fate will greet him there. He looks at the ornaments and wooden frames displayed and hanging on the walls, and a certain face strikes him as familiar. He stops in his tracks, and studies a photograph of a family of five, a father, mother and three beautiful young children. The father and the three children strongly resembled someone he knows very well, and when the realisation dawns upon him, his breathing stills.

 

This house, he knows it inside out. The walls had been repainted and the floors changed from carpet to wood. The ceiling is no longer beige in colour but a pale grey instead. The window peeking over the driveway had once been a favourite place to spy on the workers in the yard below, and the banister that curved upwards with the stairs had been a favourite way of transportation. This had been  _ his  _ home, and the man in the picture - the photographs is  _ him _ .

 

_ He found him. _

 

Since waking up as an angel, he’s never felt very many unnecessary emotions, especially that of fear which seems to cripple him now. He doesn’t want to go into that room, fearing what - or rather  _ who _ might say hello to him in there. If angels could even feel scared, then Sehun is terrified, because he has not once considered that he would be the one to guide - to say goodbye to  _ Zitao’s  _ soul as he goes into heaven.

 

Sehun suddenly feels resentment for the role he plays, but he doesn’t want to give the job to anyone else. He stares at the door that’s waiting for him, and decides he might as well do it. He approaches the door, hesitance clear in every part of his body, and as he takes a step or two forward, he closes his eyes. He hopes he wouldn’t see something horrifying, and by taking a small peek as he raises one lid very slowly, he finds an old man’s soul weeping on the side of his bed, next to a body which could only be his.

 

His appearance causes the man to raise his head, and the look in his eyes makes Sehun gulp, his feet frozen on the spot. It’s all sadness and despair, and it takes all of Sehun’s strength to walk over to him, like he’d done before when Tao had cried in his arms at the death of his most treasured pup. But that time cannot compare to this, because it is his own death that Sehun is trying to console him in.

 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, taking him into his arms, and Zitao weeps, tears spilling over his lids and onto wrinkled pale skin. “Was it peaceful?”

 

Zitao nods, and Sehun rubs his shoulder in a gentle manner, wanting to calm him down and to tell him that it isn’t all that bad. Zitao tells him in a quiet voice that no one even knows yet, not his children or the nurse that had been assigned to take care of him, and the fact that he couldn’t say goodbye makes him cry even more.

 

It takes Tao a while to calm down, but it’s okay because Sehun tells him he can take as long as he wants. When the tears have dried up on his face, Zitao pulls away and looks forlornly at his physical body, eyes pooling once again with more tears. As an angel of souls, Sehun isn’t allowed to look into each person’s lives apart from the happy memory which he needs to revert them into the form in which they’ll remain for eternity, but at this moment he wishes he could. The look in Tao’s eyes tells him that his life had been a life worth living, and he wants to see that. He wants to see how his life played out after he left it, and how Tao lived until he died.

 

He laughs, and the sound of his chuckles startles him, no matter how dry and tired they sound. “Is it like this for everyone? Their old lovers are the first ones they meet in the afterlife?” Tao asks, once he’s registered that the man beside him is Sehun, his eyes scanning over his features once or twice over before looking away.

 

Sehun shakes his head and explains that he’s an angel of souls, and Zitao looks at him in bewilderment. “Does everyone become an angel of souls?” Sehun shakes his head once again and Tao purses his lips, deep in thought. A tear rolls down his cheek, and he swipes it away with the back of his hand.

 

“You look exactly like you did all those years ago.” He remarks, a fond expression replacing the sad one he had on his face moments ago. It doesn’t remain for long though, the reality of being beyond living continuously reminding him that he no longer walks the earth. “Young and eyes full of boisterous naivety.”

Sehun is glad he remembers, because he wouldn’t have known what to do if he had forgotten who he was. 

“Angels do not age.” He says, and Zitao smiles like he knows, the deep crinkles in the corner of his eyes becoming even more visible because of it.

 

“What happens now?” Tao wonders, looking around the room like he’s trying to commit every part of it into his memory. “Will you just ... let me go?”

 

He smiles then shakes his head. “I need you to recall the happiest moment in your life before I do that. Your soul will take the form of whoever you were in that moment, and you will stay that way forever.” He explains, looking into Tao’s old hazel eyes. “In happiness. For eternity.”

 

“Will I forget everything?”

 

Sehun takes a deep breathe, out of habit because his lungs don’t actually need to work to keep him alive anymore. “You will forget all the bad things, and the memories that aren’t related to what makes you happy. There are no inhibitions where you’ll be heading, so it is best that one forgets all these things.”

 

“Oh.” Is all Zitao says before he looks like he’s in deep thought once again. “Do you remember everything?”

 

_ Only the memories which have you in them.  _ “No. My memories have been just as erased as yours will be.”

 

“Okay. Will you turn me now?”

 

Sehun nods. “That’s only if you’re ready.” He doesn’t fail to notice how Zitao’s bottom lip is quivering as he thinks and when Tao tells him that he is, Sehun’s feeling scared once again. Once he changes him, he won’t be able to go back, his body on earth will stay dead and he will have nowhere to go but heaven.

 

“Then,” He starts. “Tell me.”

 

“There are many, too many to pick.” Zitao says, resting his hands in his lap. “I became a father, you know that now probably, of three wonderful children. They all have their own families now, and watching them have their own children made me feel accomplished as a parent watching their child raise their own families. But no matter how much that made me happy, it isn’t the most happiest moment of my life.”

 

Sehun wonders why. He has met many souls before, who chose their children as reason enough to cause them the happiest moments of their lives, but Zitao seems to see differently no matter how much he loves his family.

 

“It’s probably ridiculous to say this after all these years, after everything I’ve gone through to be here right now. It’s crazy,” Tao laughs, a hand covering his mouth as he does so. “It’s probably - no, certainly - the first time I was proposed to by someone who I loved. Who I knew I could promise myself to wholeheartedly and not regret a thing. Who, when they slipped from my grasp, I cried for weeks hoping that it was all a dream. But it isn’t the promise of a marriage I’d been dreaming of that made it worthwhile.”

 

It’s hard, Sehun thinks, to listen to Tao speak of a time with him when he can tell that he should’ve experienced happier things past his time, and it all makes him wonder if he held onto the memory of Oh Sehun for as long as he possibly could.

 

“There’s a place in my heart where I’ve kept you, and I was never really able to get rid of it - not that I wanted to but - it comforted me to know that somehow you were still with me no matter what stage in my life I was in.” There’s a change in Zitao’s face as he speaks, the sound of his voice becoming younger with every word, the creases on his face fading into smoother and more youthful skin and before long, Sehun has watched Zitao change back to the boy he remembers him to be, the one he kissed in the dark when he fell asleep in his arms, and the one he watched listen to music passionately as people played songs for him, eyes shining with enamoured interest. Tao glances down at his hands tracing the skin on his wrist, no sign of ageing visible just yet. “I guess ... that did it for me?”

 

“Yes. You’re back to your nineteen year old self.” Sehun confirms, unable to tear his eyes away from Tao’s face.

 

“Where do I go?” He glances back behind Sehun at his old body, reluctance clear in his tone. “Where will I be after this?”

 

Sehun lifts a hand and points towards the ceiling, like many people do when they want to show where heaven is. He’s not actually sure what direction heaven’s at, but might as well go with the typical human perception that good is high and bad is low. Zitao follows his indication by looking up at the ceiling and then sighing a moment later. “I will have to say goodbye to you, won’t I? I won’t be able to see you there even though you’re an angel?”

 

Another thing angels of souls couldn’t do is join everyone else in heaven. They were merely messengers, meant to remain on earth as guardians for lost souls and new ones. Sehun nods, and Zitao’s expression drops but he masks it soon after with a blank look on his face.

 

“I guess that makes sense.” Zitao bites his lip dejectedly, before turning to face Sehun. “I’m glad you were the one who met me here. At least now I know what’s happened to you.  _ Thank you. _ ” He holds out his hand, and at first Sehun doesn’t know what to do with it but then realises he wants a handshake. He wants to hold his hand and lace their fingers together, and never have to let go, but even just from touching him like this Sehun knows that it won’t be the same.

 

“Are you ready?” He asks him, and he doesn’t want Tao to go. The moment he says yes, he’ll have no choice but to direct him to the place where all souls go to spend eternity, and when that happens, when he crosses that gap between earth and heaven, he won’t ever be able to see him again. He thinks he might be tearing up, and he tries to hide the tears as he stands up and offers Tao his hand to take.

 

There’s a momentary hesitance in his body as he moves to stand up, but Tao doesn’t fail to take his hand in his and tell him he’s  _ ready _ , though his voice is low and fearful. He wants to hug him again, although he knows that the time for that has long since passed. But Zitao surprises him when he kisses his cheek and flashes him a reassuring smile.

 

“Promise me we’ll see each other again?” Tao holds out a fist with his pinky finger out and Sehun stares at it in confusion. “Come on, even if you think it’s not possible. Just ... just promise me, okay?”

 

“Okay.” Sehun hooks his own finger around Zitao’s although he feels like he’s just sworn a promise he can’t uphold.

 

Zitao grins and before Sehun knows it, Tao’s arms are wrapped tightly around his waist and his head is resting against his chest and he’s shedding tears into his shirt and saying words he can’t quite make out. Sehun asks him what he means, and this time Tao makes sure that he hears.

 

“I’m sorry.  _ I love you. _ ”

 

It had been years ago since they said goodbye to one another, though at the time it had been more one-sided than anything else. Now, as Sehun holds Zitao’s soul in his arms, he wonders if this is truly their  _ last _ goodbye.

 


End file.
